Sword Forged in the Fires of Hell
by Katharos
Summary: A truly invulnerable demon rises to bring worth the end of the world, and the Sunnydale and LA team unite to prevent it…. The stories not as cliched as the summary, I promise! I just couldn't say more without giving anything away.


Authors Note: This fic begins around the time of the fifth and second seasons of Buffy and Angel, though it pays no attention 

Authors Note: This fic begins around the time of the fifth and second seasons of Buffy and Angel, though it pays no attention to various events in them because I couldn't be bothered to fit this plot line in around them. 

Disclaimer: Not mine, they belong to Joss.

Distribution: If you want it, take it, but tell me where it's going.

Timeline: Beginning of the fifth and second season, though paying no attention to the events in those

Pairings: B/A

Category: General

Content Warnings: torture, mental torture, violence, some kissing.

Rating: PG-13

Status: In progress.

Summary: A truly invulnerable demon rises to bring worth the end of the world, and the Sunnydale and LA team unite to prevent it….

Sword Forged in Hell

Angel stood and watched Wesley, concerned. The ex-watcher was on his hands and knees, creating a protective circle. Cordelia was seated in its centre and, worryingly, her usual banter and baiting of Wesley was missing.

Angel remembered the events that had lead to this.

It had started routinely, when Cordelia had received a vision that had sent Angel after a demon responsible for a series of deaths that the LAPD had had no luck in solving. It had ended with Angel barely escaping with his life from an invulnerable and immortal demon.

A nightlong research session had resulted in the facts that the Demon was truly invulnerable- he believed the exact wording was 'No weapon forged by man or demon at any moment of time,'- They had also found that the Demon's was to bring forth the End of the World, one of the battles of the End of Days.

As Cordelia had commented at the time, it wasn't really fair that Evil had so many chances, while Good only had to lose once.

They had also discovered the Demon's name, Korloch. Even just thinking it, Angel felt a strange sensation run through him, almost of Déjà vu. Somehow, when Wesley had triumphantly announced the name he had not been surprised, almost as if he had already known…

Angel impatiently shook himself. This was not the time to focus on formless feelings he reprimanded himself sternly.

It had been early the next morning, Wesley and Cordelia having slept over, when the attack came.

It was a group of lower demons, hardly any challenge at all, but there had seemed to be no end to them. And they had all carried identical knives.

Reflexively Angel reached up and touched the metal collar that encircled his neck. He remembered how he had been so completely focused on the battle that Cordelia's scream had come as a shock. He had whipped around, and froze. A trickle of red blood trailed down her arm where a knife had managed to get through her defences, but that was not what held him transfixed. A circlet of silvery metal was coalescing out of thin air around her slim neck.

He was frozen, and so he didn't register the fact that the demon he had been fighting had come up next to him until he felt the knife plunge into his side. As he sank to his knees in pain he had felt the cold weight settle around his neck.

Angel pulled his mind from the past with difficulty and went over to kneel beside Wesley.

"Are you sure this will work?" he asked worriedly. Wesley sat back on his heels, removing his glasses to rub at his eyes wearily.

"There's no reason why it shouldn't," he said. "And there should be no risk involved for Cordelia."

"Should?!" Cordelia asked shrilly.

"Inactual fact," Wesley continued after sending her a 'look' that she totally ignored, "The one in the most danger will be you." Angel shrugged.

"I'm no stranger to pain," he remarked, eyes shadowing slightly at the memories that thought recalled.

"Indeed," Wesley murmured, glancing away.

Ignoring him, Angel studied the circle carefully. He would be 'powering' the spell, as the fact that he was a Warrior of the Powers That Be, and was breaking quite a few laws, both natural and magical simply by existing as a vampire with a soul, meant that he generated a large amount of psychic energy. Enough to be able to break through Korloch's influence. Cordelia would carry a message to, if the spell worked correctly, the group in Sunnydale, her connection to him as his Messenger keeping her spirit anchored.

The reason they were resorting to such exotic means of communication was both simple and complicated. When they had regained consciousness after the battle, Angel had attempted to leave the Hyperion. And had collapsed to the floor, excruciating pain emanating from the collar around his neck. When Cordelia and Wesley had tried to do the same, the same thing had happened to them and Angel had forbidden them from even approaching the doors. Gunn was out of town on unspecified biasness for an unspecified amount of time, and they were working within a time frame.

For some reason, normal methods of communication like telephones and e-mail wouldn't work, and no one had approached the hotel since the attack. Wesley had theorised that there was a type of invisible salience surrounding it, provoking a reaction of fear and terror in anyone one who attempted to come near, driving them away.

Angel sighed. As Cordelia had pointed out, rather scathingly, at the time, it was a lot of trouble for Korloch to go to when he could obviously easily have killed them. Perhaps, Angel had said then, Korloch needed them for something, and hat meant they could hurt him. Angel felt a stabbing pain at his unbeating heart as he remembered his words, so reminiscent of the ones the woman he still loved had spoken to him one Christmas Eve when he had been ready and willing to end his own life and had been saved by a miracle.

Angel pushed that thought away quickly, and the accompanying one that if this spell went as it should, that same woman would be coming here very soon.

"Done!" Wesley's satisfied voice broke into his thoughts and he glanced up quickly.

"You're sure?" Angel asked. Wesley nodded.

"If you put your hands over the circle," he instructed. The ex-watcher looked at his friends anxiously. "Are you ready?" Both of them nodded. Cordelia's expression was tense and nervous but determined. "All right." Wesley took a deep breath and began reading aloud from a text.

The language he spoke was Latin, one of the many that Angel knew but he could not concentrate on it. He was absorbed with the strange sensations within him. He felt as if something inside him was uncurling, as if something was pulling that indefinable sense of power from deep within him, directing it into a narrow channel and feeding it into the spell. Despite that, though, he kept his eyes fastened on Cordelia, worried for his friend.

Suddenly, Cordelia's eyes went wide with surprise, then she collapsed limp, a puppet with its strings cut.

And Angel began to scream.

*******

"So," Buffy asked, seating herself down on the sofa in Giles' living room. "What's this meeting about?" She looked around expectantly at the gang of Slayerettes as Riley sat himself down next to her and draped an arm around her shoulders.

"Yeah," Anya piped up. "Me and Xander were just going to try this new gadget we brought that-"

"Anya, honey," Xander spoke up hurriedly. "You know I told you that's not the sort of thing you talk about in public."

"Oh, All right," Anya moaned, slumping back down on her chair. "But hurry it up." 

"Of Course," Giles said sarcastically. "Far be it that the end of the world should impinge on your social lives."

It took a few seconds for his words to register. Then:

"The end of the World?" Buffy asked hurriedly, sitting up straight. "Again?" She sighed. "Well, what is it this time?" Giles shook himself.

"Right," he said, turning to one of the many books lying open on his table. "All the signs point to the coming of the Demon Korloch, who will bring forth the End of the World 'In Darkness and in Blood.' It is also said that he is invulnerable 'To any weapon forged by man or demon.'"

"Sounds like the Judge," Buffy commented. She glanced over at Xander."Fancy whipping up a rocket launcher?" Giles cleared his throat pointedly and she glanced back over at him startled.

"It then goes on to say," he continued, "'At any point in time.'"

"Great," Buffy sighed, flopping back down. "So how do I kill it?"

"Maybe a spell," Willow piped up, looking over at Giles hopefully.

"I'm afraid not, Willow," Giles said apologetically. "It is imbued with great magick- any spell we might would simply be deflected off it."

Buffy stared at him, real fear growing in her. She had faced so many threats to the e world that she had become almost blasé about it. Had become certain that no matter what she and her friends could defeat whatever evil could throw at them. But this…

"If what you're saying is true," she began, and her voice shook slightly. "Can it even be defeated?" Giles rubbed at his eyes wearily.

"I have just found one more line of prophecy relating to this event," he said. "It simply states, "Only the Sword forged in the Fires of Hell can defeat him.'" Riley looked at Giles, confused.

"I thought you said he was invulnerable to any weapon," he said.

"Ummm, yes. Actually I'm having some trouble with the translation, it is in a rare derivation of Gaelic, as far as I can make out, and while 'Sword' is the closest I can come, there is actually some indication that-"

"Ok!" Buffy held her hands up. "We get the idea. The important thing is, there is a way to defeat this Korloch and so we're go-" 

A half-gasp/ half scream made Buffy jump to her feet and whip 'round. A… ghost for lack of a better word was appearing gradually in front of them. Buffy stared as the wispy image solidified into a recognisable form.

"What-" Riley began to ask.

"Cordelia?!" Buffy gasped. Cordelia turned around quickly to face her. Buffy noticed dazedly that she could see the wall through her.

"Buffy!" Cordelia exclaimed. "Now listen, I can't stay long. You need to get your little Slayer ass down to LA right now. There's this demon, Korloch, he-"

"Yeah, we know," Buffy interrupted, duty and habit taking precedence over shock. "Giles was just telling us-"

"Good," Cordelia spoke quickly. "Angel, Wesley and I are trapped in the Hyperion Hotel, we need you to release us, there's something Wesley calls a-a 'invisible malovance' surrounding it that's keeping everyone away but if you know it's there you can fight it. Korloch's getting more and more powerful, he's got a small army of demons and we need you here, like, yesterday."

"Right," Buffy spoke slowly. "And tell me again why you're speaking to us like this?"

"Because we can't use any phones or emails," Cordelia snapped. "Now, if you'll excuse me Angel is in agonising pain as long as I'm here so I'm leaving." She vanished.

Buffy stared at the spot where she had been, pale faced, then looked up at her shocked friends, her face grim.

"We're going to LA," she said.

*******

The sudden relief of pain made Angel collapse limply to the floor, shuddering. He sensed someone kneeling down next to him and he forced his eyes open to see Cordelia looking down at him, a concerned expression on her face. She placed a hand reassuringly on his arm.

"They're coming," she said quietly.

********

Korloch finished draining the blood of the latest in a long line of victims and allowed the body to drop to the floor. A lower demon came forward and dragged the body away. Korloch tilted his head back against his chair, eyes closed as he felt the swelling of the power within him from the latest ritual kill. Soon he would be able to create the Link and then… He smiled, a gruesome twisting of his mouth in anticipation. He felt a Dark presence slip into his mind which he recognised at once as his Master, the First.

^My Master?^ he asked silently

^Korloch,^ the first voice slid like oil over his mind. ^He has succeeded in contacting the Slayer.^ Korloch's eyes widened.

^He performed the ritual to enable that?^ he murmured softly. ^I did not expect that of him.^

^It is dangerous to have the Slayer so close to him,^ The First's voice was soft, full of anger from the events of the Christmas Eve when he and his Harbringers had failed. Korloch refrained from mentioning that. Instead he said coldly:

^Then we shall just have to begin sooner than expected,^

^Yessss,^ the First hissed, full of dark pleasure and the personal grudge he held against the Powers Warrior. And then the Dark presence was gone. Korloch smiled in delight. Angel would make a worthy opponent.

To Be Continued

_


End file.
